Ain’t nobody here but us chickens… and our chicken therapist alt-rock legend, along with his banjo and a whole lot of hollering.
JD Pinkus has a CV that needs even more ink than his tattoo artist. Best known as bassplayer with the Butthole Surfers, for over three decades he’s been a mover and shaker in Austin’s alt-rock scene. He’s recently joined The Melvins full-time as their second bassplayer, as well as making several songwriting contributions to their new album.
In 2018, Pinkus released, ‘Keep on the Grass‘, a solo “space grass” album played, full-on Earl Scruggs-style, entirely on his banjo. He’s now gearing up to release its successor, ‘Fungus Shui‘, and has just unveiled the first track from the new album, the gloriously anarchic ‘Gittin It‘. The new album sees him sticking to his stripped down banjo playing, matched with a fine voice that still manages to sound rougher than cheap slab lumber from an old chicken coop.
The lockdown wiped out all his planned shows and left Pinkus with an empty diary and no income. So a radical rethink was required… and as radical career rethinks go, Pinkus sets the gold standard. “Shows were few and far between this past year, so I explored new work avenues… I decided to become a Chicken Therapist to help make ends meet. Filmed in West Asheville at the end of Spring, Josh and Keturah Bishop helped me capture a day in the life of a Chicken Therapist. They wasn’t aware that this was a thing…’’
The Bishops have done a great job of capturing the joyful wackiness of the Pinkus school of chicken therapy and you’d have to have a hard heart not to raise a little smile at this wild man of alt.rock laying down some chicken-healing banjo righteousness. Guaranteed good time music for chickens and humans alike… what’s not to love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgcrF8NtM_8
